I pulled out the chair next to him and got to work.
“Don’t look!” I teased, shifting my body so he couldn’t see the chicken feet I was drawing.
He giggled, and my heart lightened at the sound.
I colored the feet in with a Big Bird palate, folded over the paper, and slid it to him to take care of the torso. I was happy when he got to work immediately.
I took advantage of his divided attention to push him a little about the way he was feeling.
“Did you have fun today?”
“Yeah,” he said. He grabbed a brown marker and started making lots of angry lines.
Wrong approach, I scolded myself.No yes or no questions.
“What was the best part about today? I’ll go first. The best part of today for me was meeting all of the new young cruisers.” I paused and lowered my voice. “Especially you.”
“Why?”
The disbelief in his voice almost broke me. This child was in turmoil.
I was way too familiar with the sensation. It was part of the reason why I’d made kids my career. If I had my way, no child in my orbit would ever feel less than or overlooked.
“Is it because of my Daddy? Everybody cares about him the most.”
“Oh my gosh,no,” I replied immediately. “I liked your vibe, Noah. You, specifically. You do your own thing. And you’re a fantastic artist. I guess I just think creative people are really cool.”
He folded over the paper and slid it back to me. The lines he’d made were so dark that they bled through the paper.
“So what was your favorite part of today?” I asked, pretending that I was focused on the torso I was drawing.
“Umm…I guess this. Drawing with you.”
I held my hand to my heart. “Really? Aw, Noah, that means a lot to me!”
I sped through my portion of drawing the shoulders and arms and slid the paper back to him. “You get to do the head, which I think is the most important part. Make it good!”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “OfcourseI’ll make it good.”
I laughed. “Okay, sassy!”
He giggled, and the smile finally took over his face. It was what I needed to see. A ray of sunshine breaking through the storm clouds. Proof there was a happy kid inside.
He kept drawing, dropping his head down close to the table and focusing so intently that his tongue popped out of the corner of his mouth.
“Hey, Noah, you ready?”
We both jumped and turned to find Logan striding toward us. Somehow, his figure made the rest of the room seem even smaller, like he was a giant invading a gnome’s house. Part of it was because everything in the room was scaled down for kids, but it was mainly because the guy wasbig.
Like, big as in muscular, but also inaura. I’d had a hard time holding my ground earlier, when I was fighting for my right to whiteboard, because those striking blue eyes pierced my soul and made me feel like a specimen he was trying to catalog. But not like he thought I was some sort of exotic animal. More like I was garbage trapped in the grooves of his shoe, and he was trying to figure out exactly how disgusting I was.
Yeah, I could pick up onzeroappreciation from the man. Which made it even worse that I couldn’t seem tostopappreciating him.
Normally, blonds did nothing for me, so it was annoying that this particular one did. Not that I’d ever admit I found him attractive.
Scratch that. The man was hot as balls. Drool-worthy. Shaky-feelings-in-my-belly gorgeous. The height thing was a win since I was a touch taller than the average woman. His light hair was short and tidy, but there was a definite style to it. And his skin had the tiniest hint of a suntan, like he spent his weekends doing manly, outdoorsy stuff. Despite that, I could tell he wasn’t afraid of moisturizer, because his face was flawless. So strange in this business, because most seafaring men looked like an old leather catcher’s mitt.
And then there was the body. He moved like a jungle cat, smooth and confident because he knew he was at the top of the food chain. Despite being tightly wound, there was still an ease about him, probably because of the firepower he was hiding under the expensive suit. Broad shoulders—I could picture him doing some sort of water sport, so it made sense that he had swimmer’s shoulders—long legs, and what I could only assume was a perfect ass hiding beneath the flap of his blazer.
